Creation Science Rebuttals

Creation Magazine

Dead Whales,
Telling Tales

Volume 26, Issue 4,
September 2004

Young earth creation science ministry Creation Ministries International ran an article in the
September 2004 issue of Creation Magazine, in
which the story of the discovery of a great number of whale fossils in
strata in Peru is told (the article was the
featured article on the Creation Ministries
International website on 24 March 2006).1

Young earth creation
science theorist Michael Oard is the author of this article, which is really
a summary of an article that appeared in the secular peer-reviewed magazine
Geology. The author of that article is listed as Leonard Brand,
a peleontologist with Loma Linda University. Oard says he assembled a
team of creationist scientists to examine this great find, which consisted
of 346 whales within a 1.5 square kilometer area. The rock layer it
was found in is the Pisco Formation, and is mostly diatomite (a sedimentary
rock made primarily of fossil diatoms, small single-cell algae).
Diatomite is observed today to form in several locations. In fact, if
you have ever owned a cat, and used clay litter, it was probably made of
diatomite. For the purpose of this article, the author refers to the
fjords of British Columbia, and the rate of accumulation is 0.1 to 0.2
inches per year.

The creationist
author Brand proposes that these whales were buried rapidly, to prevent
scavenging by other animals. The old earth position has no problems
with this interpretation. As with other fossil whales in diatomite
(the
Lompoc specimen, for example), the rapid burial is not the real issue.
The issue is the rate of deposition of diatoms, which clearly does not
support a young earth.

Brand and his team
concluded that "The most viable explanation for whale preservation
seems to be rapid burial, fast enough to cover whales 5–13 m [16–42 ft] long
and approximately 50 cm [20 in] thick within a few weeks or months, to
account for whales with well-preserved bones and some soft tissues."

Before I give
possible explanations, it should be pointed out that the rock layer in which
the whales were found is only about 10 million years old. Thus, it is
quite young geologically speaking. The standard geologic model would
say that the layers of diatomite with the whales represents about two
million years of deposition.

The writer of this
summary, Michael Oard, says "Remarkably, these rapidly buried fossil
whales contradict one of the ruling principles of modern geology,
uniformitarianism." This is only partially true.
Uniformitarianism recognizes that catastrophic events occur today, therefore
they occurred in the past. Thus, uniformitarianism encompasses
catastrophism. He goes on to say that these whales "creates a problem
for those who believe in millions of years." This simply is not true.
Since we accept catastrophic events within uniformitarianism, it is no
problem at all.

Several possibilities
exist to explain this rapid burial. Oard continues his summary
by saying Brand and his team found evidence of strong water currents in the
region, as abundant small channels were scoured out and refilled with
sediment. I agree this is a likely mechanism to bury the whales in a
matter of weeks, as the sediment was obviously reworked vigorously by the
waters of this environment. However, this is no evidence of a global
flood only 6,000 years ago. This is merely evidence of rapid reworking
of sediments.

Remember the normal deposition rate of up to 0.2
inches per year? This rate could not be responsible for burying the
whales. The mechanism was the reworking of this sediment by the strong
currents. The global flood would give you rapid deposition rates, but
Brand gives good evidence for reworking of the sediments, instead of rapid
deposition. His argument is not an argument for a rapid deposition,
young earth global flood.

One more possibility exists, which probably also
aided in the burial. A 42 foot whale weighs thousands of pounds.
This amount of mass would sink into the soft sediments, thus the weight of
the animal would greatly aid in speeding up its burial.

Conclusion

Old earth creationists have no problems accepting
the interpretation of rapid burial for these whales. In this case,
"rapid burial" does not mean "rapid deposition." The reworking of
already deposited material easily accounts for the burial. Contrary to
Oard's claims, these whales present no problems for a belief in an old
earth.

It is interesting to note that this was published
in a secular scientific magazine, Geology. How could a young earth
creationist get published in a secular journal? He reported the age of
the rocks as Miocene-Pliocene, but did not go further than that. Thus,
he did not include any claim that the rocks were only 6,000 years old, even
though that is what he believes. In other words, the average reader of
this magazine would assume Brand thought it was millions of years old.
In short, he deceived the publishers of Geology.

It should be noted that the author of the article
in Geology, Leonard Brand, is also the same person who did a study of
the tracks of animals in the Coconino Sandstone. The Coconino is a
desert sandstone, and is one of the rock layers in the Grand Canyon.
Brand tried to claim that the tracks were made underwater, because a desert
sandstone, in between flood-deposited rocks, destroys the young earth model.
However, his claims are faulty (see
this article for more).

If you are not a Christian, and you have been holding out on making a decision
for Christ because the Church always preached a message that was contrary to
what you saw in the scientific world, then rest assured that the Bible is the
inerrant Word of God, and you can believe in Christ and receive salvation, while
still believing in an old earth. Click here for more.

Are you a Christian who believes in young earth creationism? Now that we
have shown the many difficulties of the young earth creation science model in
this and many other articles, how does this impact your Christian life? If
you are a young earth creationism believer,
click here.